Each July, BigBlueGumball takes the show on the road to a magical place called Silver Bay on the beautiful shores of Lake George in upstate New York.

For over 90 years, business leaders have been meeting at this unique retreat to discuss the most pressing issues of the day and contemplate the importance of leadership at what is now known as the "Leadership Forum at Silver Bay."

What is leadership?  How has leadership changed over time?  What is the value of leadership in today's business world?  And how do we instill leadership qualities in the the next generation of leaders?

Those are just a few of the "big picture" questions posed at the conference.

 BigBlueGumball had the opportunity to deliver a fun and thought-provoking interactive workshop in which we collectively reflected on our leadership journeys past and present, and envisioned our individual leadership legacies as we drive towards the future.  We were inspired by everyone's stories... the lessons learned... the choices made... and the obstacles overcome.

A huge thank you to all who make this special conference an incredible experience, and thank you to our fellow conference speakers (listed below).

We look forward to returning in July of 2014 when we get to revisit our stories, share our experiences, and continue along on our journey.

Until then... happy and safe travels to all....  BigBlueGumball

Our fellow 2013 Conference Facilitators:

Bryan Mattimore - author of best-selling creativity books Idea Stormers and 99% Inspiration

Ron Ashkenas - author of Simply Effective, coauthor of The Boundaryless Organization. Managing Partner of Robert Schaffer Associates

Jeremey Donovan - Group Vice President, Gartner Research, author of How To Deliver A TED Talk

Sean Brawley - has worked for 20 years with Tim Gallwey, the author of The Inner Game series of books including the classic, The Inner Game of Tennis. Co-founder and lead trainer of the Inner Game School of Coaching.

Bob and Gregg Vanourek - authors of Triple Crown Leadership

Neerja Bhatia - author of Art of Resilience and Bliss is in Knowing the Self

Diana Brooks - longtime Leadership Forum member and terrific coach

Just to be clear... we're not declaring war on PowerPoint itself.  PowerPoint is simply a tool.  And like any tool, it can be used well... or it can be damaging.

With that clarified, we have declared war on crappy PowerPoint..!   We're determined to rid the world of horrible PowerPoint one presentation at a time.

To mark the occasion, we kicked off the revolution last night with the launch of the Power Presenters Meetup Group, and our first public workshop on creatiing more effective PowerPoint presentations...!  

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to support the revolution and carry out the first mission.  For pictures of the event and all of the fantastic, smart, insightful, and attractive attendees, click here.

A big thank you to our favorite coworking space New Work City for hosting and co-sponsoring the event.

Please join the Power Presenters Meetup Group for infomation on all future events - which will focus on all aspects of effective presentation and communication.

Viva La Revolution....!!!

This December, BigBlueGumball was happy to deliver our first workshop for the UJA Federation of New York.

As professionals, we all need to influence in some way.  And, since Visual Storytelling is such a powerful means of communication and influecning, it only made sense to deliver a workshop on Influencing Through Visual Storytelling.

So what does that look like?  See the presentation here:

Due to Hurricane Sandy, our event has been rescheduled for February 21, 2013.  Stay tuned for more details...!

BigBlueGumball is proud to announce that we are headed up to Stamford, Connecticut to present to the Fairfield County Communications Association (FCCA) on the evening of November 15th.

The FCCA is the premier regional networking organization for public relations, marketing, and communications professionals who live and/or work in Fairfield County and the surrounding area.

FCCA is on an exciting and ambitious mission to develop a "Creative Corridor" that will leverage the innovative and creative talents of the local professional community. And our intention is to make a creative contribution to this effort -- while adding some interactivity and fun to the process.

How, you ask...?

By helping FCCA members to...

 "Unleash the Power of Visual Communication"!

To get your creative juices flowing and rev up for the event, please enjoy the video below...

BigBlueGumball at FCCA from Steve Cherches on Vimeo.

BigBlueGumball at FCCA - Promo from Steve Cherches on Vimeo.

If confronted with these two restroom signs (on the right), which one would you choose?  If you drove up to a green stop sign, would you stop or go?  If the "No Smoking" sign was on the bottom of an upside-down ashtray... hmmm... where to even start....?

These are just a few of the extremely important questions posed at BigBlueGumball's recent VizThink NYC workshop entitled "Red Light Go: Mixed Signals in Visual Communication."  

We live in a world in which we regularly encouter mixed signals that lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and uninformed decisions.  Visuals can (and should) help clarify our communication, but poor visual choices can amplify the confusion, and lead to disasterous results.  

"Red Light Go" was an opportunity to examine the impact of mixed messages in visual communication, as well as an exploration of how we can avoid them by becoming more effective visual communicators.  The end result looked something like the image below (courtesy of Amanda Lyons of Visuals for Change)...

For more about the event, please see the VizThink.com blog (courtesy of Dean Meyers), and check out the event photos on Meetup.com.

To stay in the loop on future VizThink NYC events, please click here and join the VizThink NYC Meetup Group.

Ready.... GO....!!!